This Texas Highways’ web story is one of the most important news stories I have ever reported. It bolsters my award-winning journalism experience and current pursuit of the Ph.D. in history at the University of North Texas. Further, it contributes to research about Emily West and Hendrick Arnold, the two mixed-race African American historic figures who will forever be celebrated for their contributions to the Texas Revolution.

​Read about my journey to graduate school

​When I received an email from Texas Highways magazine asking if I would be interested in reporting about the Alamo’s first statues honoring African Americans who were part of the Texas Revolution, I squeezed it into my overcrowded schedule. What I discovered about them confirmed the wisdom of my late former Abilene Christian University mentor, Dr. Charlie Marler. During a phone call in December 2020, he said,“There aren’t enough African American historians. I want you to go back to school to become a historian!” ​

That was an order, not a request.

Read my memorial blog series about Dr. Marler

​I am so glad I listened and followed Dr. Marler’s order to go back to school and that he witnessed my graduate studies in the history program at the University of Texas at Arlington. That achievement was possible thanks to scholarships from Dr. W. Marvin Dulaney, the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and he is also UTA professor emeritus. I look forward to researching, reporting, writing, and publishing many more neglected Black history stories for  multimedia platforms, magazines, newspapers, academic journals, books, and yes, my future dissertation!

My journalism professor, mentor, and guiding light, Dr. Charlie Marler, died May 27, 2022, and I am creating a series of blog posts about the impact he had on my and his other former students’ journalism and media careers. I am bringing his colleagues and others into the conversation as well.  In this post, I share the text of Ron Hadfield's remarks from the Celebration of Life service, held June 1, 2022, at the University Church of Christ, Abilene, TX.

Fourth Post: Ron Hadfield's Remarks at Dr. Charlie Marler's Celebration of Life Service, June 1, 2022

By Ron Hadfield Dr. Charlie Marler shared my father’s first name and like him, married a girl from western Kentucky. They didn’t know each other in the 1930s, but Peggy Lucille Gambill of Fulton and Margaret Ann Pullen of Farmington grew up just 21 miles from one another, and were cut in many ways from the same cloth.​ Dr. Charlie Marler was Regina Burns' former Communication Law professor and mentor. ​I have always said that the toughest editor in the Marler house wore a skirt to church on Sunday mornings. It’s true, you know. I saw it on the marked-up papers our son brought home from elementary school, which made him groan

Ron Hadfield Download the .PDF from the memorial service Cover of the program for the Celebration of Life service, held June 1, 2022, in Abilene, TX. and his parents smile. ​His teacher, Peggy, was an uncompromising editor, but a loving one, and one of Tanner’s earliest encouragers that he become a writer, which he has.

The Marlers shared Charlie’s 89th home-cooked birthday lunch with me last month, a feast including two of his favorites: barbeque pork ribs and a decadent chocolate cake. The conversation was candid and comforting, and it reminded me of moments years ago around the same table between this college student and two of the most godly people I’ve ever known.

Charlie Marler was my college professor, my professional mentor and my Texas Father, and not always in that order. I did not aspire to be a college professor, but in most other ways, my journalistic apple, so to speak, did not fall far from his tree.

By task and by default, we have found ourselves serving as unofficial historians for Abilene Christian, for a combined total of more than 100 years, a number I have a hard time grasping. 

That’s a privilege and a responsibility we enjoyed but took seriously: a blessing with, at times, a heavy yoke. In short, we learn about our shared alma mater, store the facts where others can hopefully find them later, and tell stories about its people and moments that matter most. 

​​Together, we have worked across the street at a place where the late, great academic dean Walter H. Adams once said he was a member of the church, at the institution where he was worth more to the church than anywhere else. We saw our work that way, as mission and vocation.

For just short of 40 years, I have had the often unenviable task of proofing and editing the best editor I knew. 

Early on, I felt like the relief pitcher waiting in the bullpen to follow Mariano Rivera, the nearly infallible and eventual Baseball Hall of Fame closer who wrapped up wins for the New York Yankees: When Mariano and Charlie were through being great at what they do, there was not much meat left on the proverbial barbeque pork rib.

Even at the end of his eighth decade, Charlie could work circles around most people half his age. His work ethic, like my own parents, has been an inescapable inheritance. Before his stroke and fall last week, he likely was online, at age 89, researching something to benefit his latest project for me or his own interest on ACU’s behalf.

Over time, kinks began to show in his armor, thanks to failing vision, a slightly leaky memory and the challenge of keeping up with "Associated Press Stylebook" editors who changed their mind on punctuation and usage like most of us change our socks. 

But he genuinely appreciated the extra set of eyes I brought to our relationship, and we regularly exchanged drafts of our work. I sought his counsel on difficult days, and he always wanted to know what was new in my world. Over time, my professor became my teammate and confidant. 
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​He never stopped being a champion of free speech yet always defended, even demanded, the truth be told as well. 

Photo courtesy of The Portal to Texas History, https://bit.ly/3zvyC5q

​Ours was not unlike the relationship I came to enjoy with the late Dr. John C. Stevens, ACU’s eighth president and another unofficial historian who spent half a century on campus as professor and administrator. The three of us collaborated on two history books, and on projects small and large, including those for an ambitious Centennial that took decades to plan, 12 months to celebrate and years to recover ​from.

The ironies never failed to awe me. Dr. Marler was the newspaper advisor and Dr. John the president during my college days and two tours of duty as editor of The Optimist. I probably kept both of them on their toes with investigative stories and youthfully enthusiastic editorials that took no prisoners. Years later, though, I found myself as Stevens’ golf partner many Saturday mornings and the rest of the time, as Charlie’s storyteller sidekick. 

Dr. John and Dr. Marler, fellow members of this church, each died in the month of May, now 15 years apart. My memories of them, like those described so eloquently by James Earl Jones in the iconic baseball film "Field of Dreams," are so thick today that I, too, have to brush them away from my face. 

​Mitch Albom, the best writer in my hometown of Detroit – and most other hometowns – wrote a top-selling book several years ago titled "Tuesdays With Morrie," a touching account of the time he spent with a beloved former college professor dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. In the final chapter, Albom asks:
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Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine? If you are lucky enough to find your way to such teachers, you will always find your way back. Sometimes it is only in your head. Sometimes it is right alongside their beds.

​The teaching, Albom says, always goes on.

​​The last few years, I was fortunate to have regular meetings over lunch with Charlie, in addition to countless calls from his cell phone, which made me laugh because caller ID showed each to be from “Sweetwater, Texas” although he was never there. We met on other days as well, depending on Peggy’s trips to the hairdresser or lunches with her friends.

​I told myself those gatherings were my Mondays With Marler, although there was no impending health issue, only sacred time with a mentor who had increasing trouble – like many of us as we age – getting up and down from his chair. His mind was as sharp as his wit. ​

​For some reason, I had the overwhelming thought during the most recent lunch that it might be our last, and it was. That particular Monday With Marler was a bright day, the grass never greener and roses never more red outside the windows in the sun room where he worked and held court with me, and for years before, with students on Fridays in his Opinion Writing class.

Dr. John would often exclaim the words, “We shall not see his like again!” on more than one occasion about a passing dignitary or world leader, a paraphrase of Shakespeare’s famous line in Hamlet. Truer words were never spoken about each of them, as I shall not see their likes again, these two people who shaped me like no others.

With Charlie’s passing, the circle of unofficial historians for this university has become uncomfortably small. Thankfully, my life and work have been enriched by these two exacting but benevolent giants who shared their knowledge, took the time to know me and envision me at my best, and showed me the way there. 

Especially this dear man and mentor, my Texas Father, whose teaching goes on. 

Learn More:
Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon Celebrates the Life and Legacy of Dr. Charlie Marler 
​Journeying Through Grief: The Death of My Mentor, Dr. Charlie Marler

My journalism professor, mentor, and guiding light, Dr. Charlie Marler, died May 27, 2022, and I plan to write a series of blog posts about the impact he had on my and his other former students’ journalism and media careers. 

Second Post: Searching for Healing, June 4, 2022

Grieving the death of my former Abilene Christian University professor and mentor, Dr. Charlie Marler, June 1, 2022. Photo by Levi Turner, ACU alumni.

I attended the June 1, 2022, Celebration of Life service (download the searchable .PDF). I offered my condolences to Peggy Marler and the rest of Dr. Charlie Marler’s family and colleagues at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. Each speaker trumpeted Marler's commitment to his family, academic scholarship, his faith, and the Abilene community through meaningful anecdotes and his favorite scripture in Philippians. I plan to post the text of some of the speakers' remarks as I receive them.​

Furthermore, this week, I visited ACU’s Journalism and Mass Communication Department to search for healing of my grief  through conversations with members of the JMC community and to celebrate my days as a former KACU announcer/JMC student. Meeting some of the current students and staff, as well as touring classrooms, offices, ACUTV, and the Morris+Mitchell student agency contributed to my healing journey. As the first Black person and the first woman to receive ACU's Gutenberg Award, which Marler created, touching familiar ground was a smart step.

Additionally, I advanced my graduate history studies by meeting with two ACU librarians, Melinda Isbell and Laura Baker. They steered me to a wealth of resources and academic research strategies. Their invaluable guidance advanced my goal to fulfill Marler’s wish that I become a historian, specializing in African American history in Texas.

Moreover, due to a series of unplanned events, I met an ACU staffer, Evan Steele, who went out of his way to support my goals to honor Marler’s legacy, and also, become a Texas historian. Steele offered support and great foreign-language study tips, which will help me prepare for forthcoming Spanish exams for graduate school. 

All in all, I received an ocean of comfort from so many people, including Susan Perry, a long-time Abilene friend who alerted me to Marler's illness, which she found out about in an email from the University Church of Christ. I am so thankful to that church for its quick email blast. Additionally, I appreciate Susan for her fast communication to me, and to her brother, Greg Perry, for his support. If it had not been for them, I would not have known Marler was sick!​

Subsequently, this week was filled with overwhelming grief and loss. Nevertheless, I am navigating through the grief and charting new paths forward. Most of all, I am excited about the new people and resources that came into my life during my time in Abilene. I believe Marler had a hand in it.
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Previous post in the series: Mourning the Death of Dr. Charlie Marler, My ACU Professor and Mentor

My journalism professor, mentor, and guiding light, Dr. Charlie Marler, died May 27, 2022, and I plan to write a series of blog posts about the impact he had on my and his other former students’ journalism and media careers.

First Post: Shock and Grief, May 31, 2022

​     When I stepped out of a Greyhound bus in Abilene, Texas, in 1979, I was determined to earn a bachelor’s degree and become a broadcast journalist. I had no idea that one of my Abilene Christian University journalism professors would influence and redirect my career in the remarkable ways that the late Dr. Charlie Marler did. The long trip from my native Memphis, Tennessee, was a time of celebration and joy for numerous reasons. I was the first in my family to enroll in college. My family helped me pack all our hopes and dreams in the borrowed suitcases donated by my former junior high school guidance counselor, Viola O’Neil Cole, and Peggy and Geno Grandi. The Grandis gave me a part-time job during high school cleaning their East Memphis house. I had a scholarship from the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and the blessings and prayers of my beloved parents, Rowena H. Whiting, and Prince Whiting Jr. Moreover, the Tennessee to Texas bus trip was important to the community, including members of the Southside Church of Christ, and Mary and Myron Lowery, among many others. I knew a lot of people wanted me to succeed and I planned to accomplish just that.

     Marler was my Communication Law professor and at that time, chair of ACU’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communication. Before I graduated in 1983, I had landed a part-time job working in TV news at KRBC, which was Abilene’s NBC affiliate at that time. Further, I had already sold a story to CNN, which was pretty amazing for a greenhorn still in college. After graduation, I left Abilene to pursue new jobs in other states and returned a decade later to be honored with the Gutenberg Award. As time pressed forward, I kept in touch with Marler, and he shared some of the projects he was working on. Peggy Marler, his wife, always answered the phone with a kind voice and then said: “Here’s Charlie” and handed him the phone. Marler and I had long phone conversations about media-related topics, and he was always interested in my career and encouraged me.

     In 2019, we had an extended conversation about being multimedia specialists, which we both were. In December 2020, he basically ordered me to go back to school to become a historian, after I told him about my just-published Texas Highways magazine stories. I followed orders and he wrote recommendation letters to support my graduate history applications.

     Long-time Abilene friend, Susan Perry, alerted me May 25, 2022, that Marler was in ICU. I spoke with Peggy, and she updated me that he had had a stroke. I was sick with fear and asked her to please keep me informed. I prayed. She alerted me on May 27 via a text message that he had died. I was overcome with grief that day and inconsolable when I saw his picture on an Abilene funeral home’s website.

     I am coping with my grief by writing and rereading his graduate history recommendation letters. I just completed 12 graduate hours on a part-time basis at the University of Texas at Arlington, thanks to two fantastic scholarships from UTA Professor Emeritus and Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) President Dr. W. Marvin Dulaney. Further, I was accepted into the doctorate program at the University of North Texas. Marler knew of my progress and that I planned to start the doctorate, pending the best financial aid support I can receive, this fall. I am so glad I quickly followed his orders because he predicted I could leverage my journalism expertise as he did and make a significant contribution. I plan to specialize in African American history in Texas.

     Marler went above and beyond by making himself available to me and his other former students. He rejected the traditional patriarchal mindset of his generation and saw each student as capable of achieving more, and more, and more. He practiced what he preached by conducting scholarly research and continuing to write to the end of his life.

​     And lastly, he cared!

Please leave your comments to these questions: How did Dr. Marler impact your career and life? Have you ever experienced the death of a  mentor? How did you cope?